He told me since I was a Christian, I was trampling on his negative rights.Originally Posted by Dirtydawg
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He told me since I was a Christian, I was trampling on his negative rights.
That is clearly the basis of his argument. Nihilism exists when there is nothing to value. To think of objectivism as nihilism is to not place value in YOURSELF. So that is explicitly what he stated.
The purpose of existence? Why is there a choice or a purpose? Existence simply exists.
We are faced with the choice of survival. Do I live or do I die? Morality is defined in terms of the fundamental choice.
I am specifically attacking religious, societal and political frameworks that would take from me to support others when I say that there is no reason I should be expected to support a life that has no value. I support it by forced taxation, etc., and I would be happy to address all of those issues in the thread entitled ethics, morality, and all that jazz.
The basis of all of these frameworks is a subversion of reason. I have no problem with someone making a choice to believe in a god (even if its an arbitrary, false choice), but I have a major problem when that belief in a god is applied to justify taking what is mine. But again, this discussion is for the other thread, dhuss just chose to address the issue here, so I responded here.
You dont offend me Randy, you actually have it figured pretty well. Dhuss apart from God is useless. Dhuss with God has purpose. Since Randy doesnt believe in God, he thinks Dhuss is worthless. That is fine, Dhuss doesnt care what Randy thinks.
Well, if you don't value yourself then you can't expect anyone else to.
I dont care what anyone else thinks.
You wouldn't post on a message board if that were true. :icon_wink:
Well, I don't understand why I should value someone else regardless of whether he values himself or not.
Well, I do love to discuss the things that make up this life: football, beer, hot women, and philosophy. Wait, one of those seems not to fit.
Maybe you shouldn't.
In truth, the only thing that I care if people value is my accounting/financial skill. That way I can get paid so I can live my life. I do care how people perceive me in the fact that I am a Christian and how I act affects my witness. I do not care what people think of dhuss apart from God when he dies.
I never said you should. But the argument is nonetheless a stab in the heart of things like deontology (Kant), who basically says that all people should be valued. In a round-about way, I was addressing another question dhuss had... :icon_wink:
Maybe you can type more slowly so I can understand better because I'm kind of slow, but I don't understand some things. For instance, if existence just simply is, then what's the purpose of it? I mean, why choose to exist? It's illogical to me to simply choose to exist if there's no purpose to existence. I mean, the whole direction of existence is non-existence as far as human life is concerned. By believing there is no purpose to life there is no possible outcome of human existence other than death, so how is it logical to continue that existence especially when one knows it most probably is going to lead to pain and dependence at older ages. If not, the ending of that life at younger ages also is usually the result of some tragic accident or disease. Knowing that, how is it logical to continue to allow that type of existence to exist?
And sense, in your opinion, people have no purpose in existing other than simply to exist, what is the logic to allow one to live once he is no longer a benefit to soceity? Let's say YOU were to get cancer. How is it logical to use resources to treat your cancer when there is a chance that you will still die from cancer when those resources can be used for more beneficial purposes for the existence of others.
Finally, if existence is simply existence and all things exist just to exist how can you claim anything as yours. Now I know you'll say that you work so that you may receive payment so that you can continue to exist by buying the things you need to survive, but really, if existence is simply existence then what gives you the right to possess another existence that is in and of itself as valuable as your existence? And, with that in mind, let's go back to the cancer scenario. If you get cancer, how is it logical to allow you to keep your resources knowing that you'll probably die anyway when someone else who will be a benefit could make better use of them?
There is no purpose to existence. The question "what is the purpose of existence?" itself is invalid. It presupposes that there is an alternative to existence, namely nonexistence and SOMONE (such as a God) made the choice of existence over nonexistence. This is irrational as described countless times in this thread. Maybe Randerizer will summarize the point again.
Usually there is nothing to be gained in death. The continuation of life is a choice for each individual. Personally, I would prefer to continue to live. If at some point living is worse than dying, then maybe it makes more sense to die than prolong life.
The rest of your questions are answered in the "ethics, morality, and all that jazz thread" (in the first post). To summarize, you should act in your rational self interest which usually means not giving your property away. You might prefer to give it to someone you love however if you know for a fact that it is more than you are going to use.
Here is the issue stated slightly different.
There are three fundamentals to metaphysics:
1) the axiom of existence - existence exists.
2) the axiom of consciousness - basically, that I can perceive that existence exists means that consciousness, or the ability to perceive existence exists.
3) the law of identity - A is A.
To summarize, existence is identity, consciousness is identification.
The religious would hold that existence was created by some higher being. They get there by asking the question "why existence," which Guisslap has already shown is already implying an answer. But existence CANNOT be created as suggested by the question. You see, in the absence of existence you would have nonexistence, in which nothing would exist. But how can a conscious exist without existence? The answer is simply that it cannot, because consciousness is only consciousness if there is existence.
There have been another series of arguments which have possibly not been completed. Drumlogic and Johnnylightnin have been advocating what they consider to be a rational proof of God's existence. The idea is principled on Aristotilean theory of the "Unmoved mover," and their proof basically goes:
1) things are moving or in a state of change
2) things can't move (change) themselves
3) there had to be a first mover (God)
however, this is flawed for several additional reasons besides the argument against consciousness over existence:
1) there is no reason that the natural position of objects is a state of rest. Consider Newton's law of inertia - an object continues on its path unless its acted on by an outside force. This implies that objects could ALWAYS be moving.
2) it makes a critical error between steps 2 and 3. Specifically, even if things were in a position of rest, there is no reason why multiple existents couldn't exert force on each other. For physical justification, consider magnetic fields or the law of universal gravitation. Two bodies at a fixed distance apart still operate on each other with forces. So there is no reason why anything outside of existence itself is necessary to explain forces, movement, etc.
Were there other questions we did not address?
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